Moonlight
by meowll
Summary: Night musings.


At night, L didn't know anything anymore.

As the workday came to an end, the taskforce members left to their rooms one by one.

Sometimes he wished he knew what was going on in their minds- no, he wanted to _experience _it, to feel how they felt, to carry the burdens they were carrying on their shoulders, the human, the mundane. At least for a few minutes, he would have wanted to stop being himself, to get rid of the thoughts that kept coming in complicated webs, of the connections that happened without his own accord, of the questions he could never, ever answer.

He couldn't.

He contemplated them with morbid curiosity as they walked away, chewing on his thumb. How was it like? How did it feel to be _normal_?

The room would soon be almost empty, and he would immerse in his work once again. At his right, his main Kira suspect would continue working for a while, after which he could simply give up, clicking randomly, opening files of no significance. His gaze would wander around the room with no definite aim. L knew, because he'd spent enough time with Light to notice the pattern.

The boy's behaviour would distract his attention, and so Light was, unconsciously, always the one to dictate the hour of their sleeptime.

As long as there was daylight, everything was fine. But as the night came, feelings of an almost human nature started climbing up L's spine like spiders, slowly creeping behind him, invading and corrupting coherent thoughts. _Feelings_- the ones he had learnt to get rid of in time, they always returned in the moonlight.

There were insecurities, doubts on his presumptions, questions of his purpose, and sometimes, under the full moon, the emptiness, the unlimited emptiness of him, of all the human beings, of the entire world. There was despair, but not really. And since he had met Light Yagami, there had been something different, a combination of friendship and attraction topped by an infinite curiosity. Something that was dangerously close to confusion.

He would often stare, trying to slip under Light's composed mask of decency and seriousness, but all he could catch were half-frowns and, late at night, when the boy was consumed and too tired to care, contemplative gazes towards absolutely nothing.

It was fascinating. He couldn't stop looking.

He had figured Light out, and long ago, too, but that didn't steal the charm of the observation process. Someone with such a strong sense of justice, that he was capable of killing half of the planet in the name of it. Someone so intelligent, that he had avoided being caught by the very person who was closest to him. Someone so intricate, that he had lost his memories of being Kira and hadn't followed the same path, be it only theoretical, for the second time.

Light was confused, but he had chosen Justice.

And L knew so many things, but sometimes he was just sick of it.

And sometimes, just sometimes, when they accidentally touched, when Light dragged L towards the door without a word, his head bowed down and his frown deeper than usual, irradiating exhaustion and confusion and _who the hell am I today_, L wanted to pin him against a wall and breathe his entire being through his lips, he wanted to understand without words and to have that beautiful, vile, fascinating human being that was Light open to him entirely, because he was curious, because he wanted- no, he _needed_ to know _everything_ and because, why not, Light was undeniably and completely worth it.

He never did, and instead followed the boy to their room, his eyes glued to him, watching his every move, noticing every change in his expression, every tension running through his muscles. He watched him undress, and if Light knew that he was being watched, he did nothing to show it. L changed too, and in the short period of time when the chain was off, he felt like running away as fast as possible, climbing walls and breaking windows in the process, just to get away from him, to breathe in the clear for a while, far from the fascination that Light exerted upon him, making him think of skin and bruises and hisses and screams and _him_, him writhing under his touch, opening to his endless curiosity and desire.

He could make him scream, he thought, he could make him lose all control and make a complete mess out of him, for one night or forever. He could make Light forget who he was and really, who doesn't want that, who doesn't want to escape themselves for just a little while… but the problem with Light was that he had already lost himself.

L could make him remember, or…

…wait for the sunrise to brush off all the incoherence and weakness that darkness brought upon him.

The chain once again clicked in his place. Light went to sleep, and he was left alone.

He opened his laptop and the last thing he could think of was work. Throwing a last look towards the boy shifting between the sheets, he opened a Word document and started typing.

Words, words, words. Springing from his open mind, raw, unforgiving, encompassing everything that he could and could not think of, telling stories or saying nothing at all, an incoherent mixture of symbols that lost their meaning when combined or on the contrary, a web of words that flowed like rivers, deep sea, expressing all the torment and the beauty that the night threw upon him, feelings that weren't his, emotions that he wouldn't recognize anymore once with dawn.

He wrote and built and destroyed and finally, finally, there was relief.

As the cold light of the morning came through the window and he heard Light say his name in his sleep, he smiled, closed his eyes and took in the realization of the present moment in slow, deep breaths.

Everything was alright, now and forever.

...or at least until the next night.

* * *

**I'm... not very sure about this one.**


End file.
